Friday, December 20, 2013

Goblin Quest (Jig the Goblin #1) by Jim C Hines

Jig is a goblin. That means cannon fodder. That means
pest. That means nuisance. It means creature that wandering adventurers
repeatedly stamp into the dust on their way to bigger and more dangerous
things.

Not only that, but Jig is the runt of his people. Small,
frail, poorly equipped even for a goblin and short sighted. When a bully forces
Jig out on patrol and he runs into adventurers looking for loot, Jig’s death
looks certain

Through wit and common sense (both of which sorely
lacking from the “heroes”), Jig manages to live – but is dragged along to play
guide as the adventurers rampage through his mountain home looking for their
great prize; while Jig desperately hopes to stay alive in the face of
hobgoblins, poisonous lizard-fish, the undead and, of course, a dragon.

He’d also quite like it if his people weren’t massacred.
Again.

This book is, I think, specifically aimed at a certain
class of reader. If you have read a lot of high fantasy books, if you have
played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons, if you are saturated in the tropes that
come with that genre and that game and all the stuff that goes with classic
sword and sorcery fiction – then this book is aimed at you and you will enjoy
it.

It has numerable instances of calling out and poking fun
at the tropes in the genre – some of them are tiny references (like poking the
improbably-melon-breasted-depictions of women) or the basis of several
characters (like Riana, the elf – who isn’t tall and elegant, isn’t classy
aristocratic or anything else we assume about elves. And yes, she’s a thief –
but why should a thief know how to find traps anyway? Since when do merchants
trap their coin purses?) or even poking fun at player habits of the way these
games/books are written (Darnak having to carry a massive pack to hold all of
his gear – and his obsessive cartography to even navigate the dungeons). There’s
a lot of these excellent tropes being poked

But above all there’s the very premise – our protagonist
is a goblin. A creature, in this genre, that exists to die. Not even die in a
heroic encounter, they barely count as monsters, they’re a nuisance, trash,
something to grind through. Inept and incompetent and thoroughly bullied and
exploited by everything around them – they would be pitiable if they weren’t so
unpleasant. And through their lens you get to see the heroes – the bickering,
the arrogance, the contempt, their greed and just how hard it is for a poor
goblin to even live with this rampaging heroes attacking his home and stealing
anything that isn’t nailed down. It’s a fun reversal and, for me as a player of
the games and lover of the genre, it makes me smile to see so many of the
staples being challenged –and realising how often my heroes have been these arseholes,
albeit seen through a different lens.

Of course, the flip side to that is if you’re not as
immersed in the genre and the games then you have a moderately decent story
with an underdog protagonist.

It still has a lot to recommend it. Jig is an interesting protagonist – because
he is so utterly and completely powerless in a way that very few protagonists
are. And while he gains some talents, he equally gains an even greater
knowledge of his powerlessness. The only thing Jig has going for him is some
decent common sense (and a pretty useless deity – which is another amusing
aspect) – he’s not even a super genius or anything similar, he’s merely more
sensible (and more aware of his own mortality) than the arrogant heroes
dragging him around.

And Jig is very true to himself. He doesn’t start identifying with his captures
or suddenly getting on their side or joining the group – the ending is both
surprising and very honest and a great subversion of genre-lead expectations.
He’s not a nice guy, he’s not that kind, he has the same brutal, callous
outlook that characterises his kin but he’s more sensible with it. He’s a
goblin – he’s just a sensible goblin. He’s not the good guy per se, any more
than the desperate-for-approval Banis is evil (though he is an arsehole).

The story itself is… relatively slow. Again, it depends a
lot on the reader - if you are the
D&D fan, the linear story, the side references, the dramatic speeches all
make sense and are wonderful lampooning. If you’re not, they’re probably
clutter.

Inclusionwise there’s not much here – and not much scope for
it either. There’s 1 definite female character in Riana who is interesting for
lots of exploration of her fast and feeling of disconnect not belonging in
either human or elven culture and a couple of side characters who are probably
female. There’s only really 2 human characters – the princes and neither is a
minority.

In all, if, like me, you cut your teeth on swords and
sorcery novels and you know your way around a D20, then this book will be very
appealing, amusing and full of geeky references you should know and ruefully
acknowledge. Reading it, I have the strong sense of it being an in-group book.

If that’s not you – well, it’s still a good book with an
intriguing and interesting character following am pretty well written, albeit
somewhat linear (with a twist ending) book. It’s a romp, it’s a dungeon crawl,
all through a very skewed lens that makes it so very different and still worth
a read – but I don’t think you’ll get as much out of it as a Fantasy/gamer buff
would and the story could use a little tightening up and the pacing moving
forward a bit